Lead Generation for Nonprofits: 9 Essential Strategies to Attract Donors

Suppose a nonprofit is a gristmill, endlessly grinding grain to feed the people of your cause. In that case, donations are like the waterwheel. A waterwheel must always be kept moving, or the whole operation grinds to a halt (no pun intended). So, what keeps the wheel going? Water, of course.

Much like the water to your gristmill, donations are the lifeblood of your organization. No matter your mission – you need donors who want to help you reach your nonprofit’s goals.

That’s where lead generation for nonprofits comes in. In this blog, we’ll discuss why nonprofit lead generation matters for growing your donor base, keeping those donors engaged for the long haul and driving maximum support toward your organization.

Ready to create a lead generation strategy that will stand the test of time? Keep reading.

What Is Lead Generation?

Simply put, nonprofit lead generation is all the processes needed to find donors who will help your organization grow and serve your community. The end goal is to turn these leads into donors who become loyal, long-term supporters.

Lead generation for nonprofits includes various strategies, from online marketing to in-person relationship cultivation. The downside of this is that creating a new overarching lead generation strategy can feel pretty intimidating. On the upside, it means there are so many ways you can improve upon your current approach.

And it all starts with a good marketing funnel.

The Nonprofit Marketing Funnel

A nonprofit marketing funnel is much like a traditional funnel, in that you dump lots of leads into the top (the widest part) and winnow them down until you find your true supporters at the bottom (the spout).

The goal with a marketing funnel is to gently encourage your leads to take the next step, which you can do in multiple ways, including:

• Educating them on your mission
• Offering free resources and downloads
• Helping them see the benefits of participation for themselves (e.g., community standing or resume building)
• Offering rewards (e.g., swag, free courses or conferences)
• Creating community

These are all viable approaches to lead generation for nonprofits. Before we dive deeper into how you can engage with potential donors, it’s important to discuss why you need to cultivate leads in the first place.

Why Your Nonprofit Needs Lead Generation

If your response to the phrase “lead generation for nonprofits” is a depressed sigh, you’re not alone. It’s kind of a bummer to add such a weighty task to your to-do list, but it’s necessary.

The thing is, no matter how wonderful your mission, there are a few facts working against you:

1. Chances are, you’re not the only one with this mission. That means you need to convince potential donors why you’re a better option than your competitors.
2. People don’t like parting with their money. Full stop.

As such, you need lead gen to help you accomplish the following goals.

Increase Awareness

First and foremost, your goal with lead generation for nonprofits should be to let people know you exist. If they don’t, they can’t donate.

Grow Donor Base

Next, you need more nonprofit leads to convert in order to boost your donor acquisition. Not only do you need to replace people who only donate once or who leave after a while, but your goal is to grow your donor base over time so you always have a reliable income stream.

Enhanced Engagement

Any lead generation strategy should enhance your engagement with your potential donors. When they first “meet” you, you’re just another voice clamoring for funds. Once they get to know you, though? Then, you become a trusted ally in the fight against a real-world problem.

A good lead gen strategy helps transform you from the former into the latter, so putting one in place is critical.

Sustained Growth

Remember, functional lead generation for nonprofits doesn’t only bring people in; it keeps them there long enough to meaningfully add to your cash flow.

The goal of nonprofit lead generation is to carry you forward into the future, gradually leaving financial concerns behind so you can focus on the community you’re trying to serve.

That said, exactly how do you accomplish these objectives? That’s where specific strategies come in.

9 Lead Generation Strategies to Gain Supporters

Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty of lead generation for nonprofits. Here are nine tactics to integrate into your nonprofit lead generation blueprint.

Optimized Website and Forms

The best nonprofit websites follow a standardized plan whenever adding a new page or form to their site. Any facet of any campaign should have clear goals. It should be integrated into the site hierarchy in a way that makes sense and is easy for leads to find. And it should be optimized, which means:

• It has a coherent message and a single goal (e.g., click, sign up, download and donate)
• Metadata is fully utilized
• Copy utilizes keywords that will help with SEO

Start here if you haven’t tackled this with your lead generation strategy. Everything comes back to your website, and failing to account for that leaves your nonprofit lead generation floundering.

Social Media Platforms

Once your site is good to go, turn your attention to social. From Facebook to Instagram, LinkedIn to X, lead generation for nonprofits can and should take place across multiple platforms.

That doesn’t mean you need to use every platform, however. In fact, doing so can spread your resources and your message too thin, which can end up working against you. To avoid this, make sure you use the best social media tools for nonprofits.

Email Marketing

Nonprofit email marketing is one of the best ways to get the most from your nonprofit leads. A good email can take many forms.

There are solicitation emails, designed to encourage an immediate donation, good for when you need a cash boost. Then there are sponsorship letters, designed to chase a long-term strategy.

Some emails are just a simple thank you, but they’re all important for a successful lead gen strategy.

Digital Content Marketing

Content marketing is a pillar of lead generation for nonprofits. Good blog posts, articles, whitepapers and multimedia help your audience understand exactly what you’re doing with your organization.

As a lead generation strategy, you absolutely cannot ignore digital marketing for nonprofits. While anyone can put content together, it’s important you ensure that every piece is integrated into the overall flow of your funnel.

Events – Live, Virtual and Hybrid

Events are an essential way to accomplish a number of nonprofit goals:

• Informing the world about your purpose and programs
• Offering practical education to donors
• Bringing in new donations

Planning an event isn’t the easiest thing in the world, though, so you and your team should take the time to learn to plan an event properly. This is true whether you offer live, virtual, or hybrid get-togethers.

You should always, always collect statistics and follow them up with good analysis. Data is key to understanding what works and what doesn’t when filling your funnel.

Google Ad Grants

Did you know Google Ads now offers grants to nonprofits? That’s right, you can earn up to $10,000 per month worth of free advertising if you qualify. No one needs to tell you that’s a whole lotta money that you could spend doing good things elsewhere.

If you haven’t yet incorporated Google Ad Grants into your overall marketing strategy, it’s time to do so today. This is one of the best, and potentially thriftiest, moves you could make in your pursuit of nonprofit leads.

Paid Advertising

Even if you can’t get it all for free, nonprofit advertising is still an excellent way to bring in nonprofit leads. As stated above, no one can donate to you if they don’t know you’re there!

Ads help to fix this essential problem, putting your message out into the world. Plus, since ads are so highly tailored these days and can retarget (i.e., revisit) people who have shown interest in your company before, they’re a very effective way to start a relationship.

Current Supporters as Ambassadors

Many nonprofit organizations make the mistake of focusing on new nonprofit leads, to the exclusion of current donors. Do that, and you’re missing a critical component of lead generation for nonprofits, for two reasons:

1. Word-of-mouth marketing is one of the most powerful assets in any nonprofit’s arsenal.
2. When you fail to give current supporters a role in your organization, they start to feel like they’re just there to provide money, and some (not all) will start to feel like it’s a shallow relationship.

To fix this, all you have to do is turn current donors into ambassadors. Give them scripts to convey your message. Recruit them for events. Engage them in peer-to-peer fundraising. Just make sure they feel they can take it to the next level if they want.

Partnerships and Collaborations

In today’s world, where businesses are always under the microscope, they feel an ever-greater pressure to use at least part of their profits to do good.

Enter cause marketing, a lead generation strategy that rests on the help and donations of businesses to advance your mission. By partnering and collaborating with for-profit businesses and organizations, you can see greater engagement while helping them polish their images.

Tools and Tips to Boost Nonprofit Lead Generation

Unfortunately, so many nonprofit organizations are so busy getting off the ground and trying to grab funding from every corner that they forget how important an overarching marketing plan really is.

It’s not enough to get nonprofit leads; you have to nurture them well. And it’s not enough to just nurture them well; you have to treat them with equal attention after they’ve donated, or they’ll leave.

And it’s not enough to engage in marketing strategies, even good ones, without a fully comprehensive plan. Much like for-profit campaigns, lead generation for nonprofits requires a view from above.

Even if you use all nine of the above techniques (and you should), you still need to make sure that you’re prioritizing the following.

Deliver Impactful Messaging and Storytelling

The single greatest step you can take toward improving your marketing is to ensure your messaging has an impact. Everyone wants to support a cause; your job is to make sure that cause is yours.

If you don’t have someone on your team who can tell great stories, that’s okay. Hire a copywriter from outside your company to craft narratives that show who you are, why you matter and why you’re the answer to a specific problem in your community.

Then, ensure that story gets into every nook and cranny of your overall messaging. Tug those heartstrings, and you’ll see a significant jump in your lead generation for nonprofits.

Choose the Right Channels

A good lead generation strategy also means choosing the proper channels. Too many organizations use a guess-and-go strategy, which is a pretty blind approach.

Instead, start with the channels you think make the most sense. Run a campaign or two, then compare the results. Gradually winnow down the channels that work and place your emphasis there. If you see more success through social media advertising than email marketing, spend more on social. This ensures that the time and money you spend have the greatest possible impact.

Of course, to do this, you need to gather good data and know how to analyze it, which brings us to …

Analyze, Report, and Pivot When Needed

Again, analysis is a key aspect of lead generation for nonprofits. You must know what works to understand what works; a meaningful tautology, if there is one.

For that reason, you should always track data when it comes to every aspect of your marketing campaigns: conversions, donations, attrition, and attendance are just a few potential metrics.

It’s not enough simply to track them, either. You have to analyze that data to make sense of it. For instance, maybe you had fewer attendees at a recent hybrid event but netted a higher number of donations overall. What does this mean? Dig in, find out, report on it and pivot where needed.

The same goes for any dataset. Education is power, friends.

Automate and Optimize Processes with Software

The truth is, you’re only one department. Or heck, maybe you’re just one person, given the fact that so many nonprofits start small. That means you’re going to need a little help finding and leveraging your nonprofit leads to the fullest.

Enter stage left: software. While it’s not the sexiest proposition in the world, good software can help you do everything from organizing your donor databases to helping you plan the best events.

If you want to make the most of your nonprofit leads, turning the greatest possible percentage of them into donors, then software isn’t a “nice to have” recommendation … it’s an absolute must.

In other words, it’s time to find some software today, and WildApricot is here to help.

Attract More Donors and Supporters with WildApricot

So, you’re ready to boost your lead generation for nonprofits. We’re ready, too, with a deep specialization in nonprofit communities and expertise based on years of success stories (15,000 organizations and counting).

It’s time to move out of the abstract and into the concrete, with software that helps you organize and understand your leads and donors. With WildApricot, you can:

• Store your membership data all in one place, safely in the cloud
• Grow your donor base with innovative event management
• Build websites and run campaigns
• Integrate your web, mobile, event and payment activities in one seamless workflow

Don’t wait any longer to give your nonprofit lead generation a bump. Start a free 60-day trial of WildApricot and see how much it can do for your nonprofit today!